ECO PROPERTY

It took three years to find a block of land that met our needs, and we love our bush hideaway. It ticked most of the boxes, and provided us with the basic materials to build our house: mud and tree-trunks.

We did most of the building ourselves, including making the mud bricks. It took about 18 months to complete the first stage of building.

Our north-facing block was chosen for maximum solar gain. We need as much direct sunlight as possible to shine on our photo-voltaic panels to charge our batteries

We have full stand-alone solar power, and are not connected to the grid so we never have blackouts or power bills, and reduce our carbon footprint.

Our dry composting toilets are non-smelly, and we don’t waste water on flushing or waste processing. The reed bed completes the process by directing the filtered grey water to some of our fruit trees.

The soil on our property is not very fertile and quite heavy clay. It made great bricks but was not so good for growing vegetables. It took a lot of work to improve the soil, but now we have made gardens and orchards, aiming for self-sufficiency, and we grow a lot of our own food.

We raise beautiful organically-fed chickens and sell their eggs.

Judy really wanted to grow organic food to use in a catering business, and to make preserves. This has been a delightful project.